h2xs: your new best friend

Don't you wish there was a tool that could write your Perl class for you, that could write a documentation (POD) skeleton as well, and generally make your life easier by doing things right? Perl comes with exactly that sort of tool: h2xs.

The important flags to remember are "-A -n Module". With those, h2xs will generate a skeleton directory called "Module" full of useful files. They are:

• Module.pm, the module itself, with skeleton documentation already written.
• Module.xs, for linking your module to C code. (Run "perldoc perlxs" for more information.)
• MANIFEST, a list of files for packaging.
• test.pl, a skeleton testing script.
• Changes, a log of changes made to the module.
• Makefile.PL, a makefile generator (run it with "perl Makefile.PL".)

You don't need to use all these files, but it's nice to know they are there when you do need them.